Cinematic Techniques in Strictly Ballroom Essays

Cinematic Techniques in Strictly Ballroom Essays

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Extended Film Response

How the film techniques used by Baz Luhrman to influence the portrayal and development of characters in the film Strictly Ballroom?

In the film Strictly Ballroom, the director Baz Luhrman uses many different film techniques to influence the portrayal and development of characters. Costume and makeup is used as a vital technique to show the audience the characters’ personalities and also the development of some characters. Camera angles and lighting is another technique that is used to exaggerate the characters’ personalities and the scenes they are in. Luhrman also uses character behaviors as an effective technique in portraying each characters’ personality.

In the film Luhrman uses costume and makeup to portray characters’ personalities. Such as Shirley Hastings. Shirley’s costume and makeup shows the audience a great deal about her personality. Shirley always wears pink, puts ‘over the top’ makeup on and wears a lot of jewellery. This tells the audience that she is ‘over the top’ and maybe insecure about herself or her past. Liz Holt is another character whose personality could not have been portrayed if it wasn’t for the costume and makeup used. Liz is a drama queen and exaggerates everything including her costume and makeup. She nearly always wears yellow and also exaggerates her makeup with bright colours even when she’s not dancing. Luhrman also used costume and makeup to show the development of one of the main characters, Fran. At the start of the film, Fran is introduced with acne, glasses and baggy clothes, which shows the audience that she is not comfortable with herself and not confident. But when Fran starts dancing she slowly becomes more confident and her costume and makeup changes. Fr...

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...eally talks and is presented as someone who is quite awkward. Doug also gets pushed around by everyone, until at the end of the film when he yells at his son Scott to listen to him, giving the audience the impression that he is tired of getting pushed around and no one listening to him and also because he didn’t want his son to make a mistake.

Film techniques are used extremely effectively in Strictly Ballroom by the director Baz Luhrman. Costume and makeup, camera angles and lighting and also character behaviours were used to influence the portrayal and development of all of the main characters. Without these film techniques, Strictly Ballroom could not have been made into a film as entertaining as it is and the characters personalities and development would not have been portrayed.

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